“Performance art is a spontaneous and unique form of artistic expression created by artists using their bodies and wisdom at a specific time and place. Its ephemeral nature makes it a one-of-a-kind experience that cannot be replicated, which is what makes it so special. For the 8th Annual Live Art Tour, we are excited to showcase this exciting and dynamic art form in vibrant and colorful New York City.
To create according to local conditions, artists will choose locations and venues that suit their unique styles, and immediately communicate with curators to organize and record their works on site. This approach not only expresses the richness and depth of Greater New York as an art center, but also highlights the unique method of performance art creation. It will provide performing artists from all over the world with the opportunity to unleash their unique energy.” - CAI QING (Curator)
Founder and curator Cai Qing [China/Germany] has gathered performance artists from around the world to immerse themselves and their art in the streets, parks and spaces in a different international city each year. This year, GES has invited Cai Qing and the curated artists to bring their vision to New York City for the first time. NYC is a stage for life, life/art, and art/life, that allows the artists to perform site-specific works at GES and on the streets, alleys and spaces throughout NYC.
The IMMERSIVE 8 Festival reacts not only to the richness and depth of Greater New York as a center for the arts, but also highlights the distinct and creative methods of performance art - with Week #1 live performance art pieces by: Paul Reagan [Ireland], Beate Linne [Germany], Gaby Bila-Günther aka LADY GABY [Australia/Romania] and Tim Martin-Jones [UK].
ABOUT CAI QING
Cai Qing, PhD, was born in China and is currently a German citizen, artist, curator and art critic who is active in the field of contemporary art and performance art.
He is also involved in education at fine-art academies, leading workshops and teaching courses in contemporary art.
PERFORMERS
PAUL REGAN
Born in Dublin in 1970, Paul Regan has a background in painting. Completed MA in Visual Arts Practices at IADT and since 2016, has focused on live performance as a vehicle to explore themes pertaining to faith, ritual and cultural [mis]identities through site-specific actions and interventions.
BEATTE LINNE
Beate Linne, born in Germany is an interdisciplinary artist who works in the fields of
performance art, video performance, sound, and installation.
Linne’s art has been presented in museums, galleries, and festivals internationally.
In addition to this, she has been the co-curator of several international performance art
festivals and is the founder of the association no w here, which aims to promote art in rural
areas and to network internationally. She lives and works in Berlin.
LADY GABY
Gaby Bila-Günther, aka Lady Gaby is a Berlin-based spoken word & performance AND visual artist who was labelled ‘the Peaches of spoken word’ in Berlin, ‘oddly poetic’ and ‘flamboyant and upbeat’ by The Age paper in Melbourne , “story teller extraordinaire by The Melbourne Times, 'A true artist ahead of Berlin' by journalist Nadja Sayej and 'provocative' by The Pill in Prague; blushing she asks - why?
Presently, she hosts The WORD BANK Radio show, a monthly live radio broadcast in Wedding, and the event The POETIC GROOVE, a night of performance artists and musicians fuse on stage. LADY GABY performs with the feminist, queer and burlesque show, The Cunt LAB.
Lady Gaby is part of the international performance artist feminist Berlin based group, NORMATIVE GAZE IN PERFORMANCE ART and The Domestic MAPPING as well as performer and member in the collective, The POETRY BROTHEL BERLIN.
TIM-MARTIN JONES
Tim Martin-Jones is an emergent artist, poet, and facilitator working primarily through performance and writing. Based in Cardiff, Wales, he received his MA in Performance Practice as Research from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University ofLondon.
Drawing from his own lived experiences of body-chaos, he aims to question what it is our bodies can do through movement and tension. His practice experiments with embodied
philosophies, focussing on bodies that are placed into an ‘out of spaceness’. Recent explorations have been concerned with precarity, locating the body within an unsteady
mimesis, where the boundaries between representation and the Real blur.
As a teenager he was diagnosed with epilepsy, the experience of seizures over his adolescence giving rise to a curiosity of the relationship between the mind and the body, and the synthesizing of the two. Tim seeks to explore what affects are produced when we encounter another body through performance, and how this alters, interrogates, and
ultimately enhances the relationships we hold with our own bodies.
Tim has staged both solo and collaborative work in theatres, industrial basements, empty shopping units, and car parks. He is a member of Wales based performance collective
SCORE.